PROCESS, NUANCE, FAILURE? In my absence, the commentary on President Carter's Nobel Peace Prize has focused on the Carter presidency. (Daniel W. Drezner's defense of the award includes links to some of the more critical posts. It is no great surprise that National Review's columnists would object, or that Best of the Web would find a way to observe that President Carter shares the prize with 1994 winner, Yasser Arafat).

Regular readers of this site will know from my "Fourth Turning Alert" series is receptive to the notion that there are cycles in history. The condensed version of this notion is here. It has some potential as a working hypothesis, but, as the concluding paragraph often reads, there is reason for future research. Research this: Three U.S. Presidents have won the Nobel Prize, namely Theodore Roosevelt for ending the Russo-Japanese War, Woodrow Wilson, for conceiving of a League of Nations, and James Earl Carter for a lifetime of work, beginning with Camp David.

All three of these Presidents are examples of the Artist generational archetype. The authors of The Fourth Turning specifically name Roosevelt and Wilson. They classify Carter as a member of a Hero generation, because of his service in World War II, but his style was more indecisive Artist than his elders, Ronald Reagan and John Kennedy.

Each President won the Nobel Peace Prize for a Third Turning temporary truce to a small war that was settled more decisively in a subsequent Fourth Turning during which "wars are fought with fury and for maximum result."

InstaPundit posts excerpts from President Roosevelt's acceptance speech, suggesting that peace, while a virtue, is not the only virtue. He also provides a link to a John Scalzi column that is definitely Fourth Turning in its tone.